When you are not with your bird, what quality of life do you provide it?

I’m lucky, I work from home and can spend more time with my birds than most people, but I also find that Mango, my tame, trusting conure, doesn’t want to be with me all the time.

And I have a rehomed budgie, Kiwi, that isn’t trusting due to his early life and Mango is teaching him how to be a bird at two years of age, things he should have been taught as a just weaned baby.

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Would you like your parrot to learn to talk or whistle, imitate sounds of any kind? If you haven’t been told yet, there is some bad news on that front: there is no guarantee that any bird of any species will ever learn to talk or make sounds. It just isn’t guaranteed.

If that is why you are adding a feathered companion to your home, then your motivations are wrong because even those parrots that do not speak add a lot to the lives of their owners —

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Accidents around the home are far too common when it comes to parrots. I have many years of experience and yet, I want to show you just how easily someone with my skill level can still allow something to happen that shouldn’t. This is how Mango lost a joint from his toe when he was very young.

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Hello Windy City Parrot

 I am visiting friends in Puerto Rico and they have a 2-year-old Moluccan Cockatoo. He is very needy.. loves to be petted and is a little neurotic.

 The past few months he has been pulling the feathers out to bloody skin and pecking at it around his neck to the point where the Vet put a collar on him to stop more damage. he still tries. he eats well. (more…)

How a Lonely Little Understimulated Budgie is Learning to be a Bird

As many of our loyal Sunday Brunch readers know, Kiwi is a beautiful little yellow and chartreuse budgie who needed a good home and found me through Craigslist. My first parrot — yes budgies are small parrots — was a normal green female budgie named Sydney and since falling in love with her and spending every day of her 11 year life with her, I’ve always loved these tenacious little parrots. I even bred them for a while when I lived on the mainland where an outdoor aviary was practical.

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